


Lonesome Ghosts

by Lissamel



Series: Inky Souls & The Depths Below (or, Lissa's Ink Machine Canon) [6]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: (Sort of implied body horror but it's there I guess?), Body Horror, Gen, Gradual Transformation, How Do I Tag, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 07:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14764955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lissamel/pseuds/Lissamel
Summary: Be careful not to lose yourself. You don't know if anyone will be able to save you from that.





	Lonesome Ghosts

Some people used to make fun of Thomas for always wearing galoshes to work.

He’d laugh right back at them.  _ You _ try working with all this ink, he’d say.  _ You _ try going down to the lower levels to do repairs in your good shoes. Sure, he might have looked ridiculous coming into work to do repairs in galoshes and rubber gloves and thick overalls, but it was better then getting dirty all the time.

Most of the jeering came from his frequent partner, Wally Franks.

“You’d think we’re out workin’ in the rain or somethin’,” He quipped with a broad smile on his face, the kind of smile that was so cheeky and jovial Thomas couldn’t help but want to punch it. In reply Thomas just held one hand up, letting drops of ink fall into his palm and then giving Wally a scathingly deadpan look. The janitor shifted, arms crossing. “Well,  _ yeah _ , it’s rainin’ ink all th’ time down ‘ere, but I mean like -- rain in th’  _ springtime _ , rains that bring a  _ flood. _ ”

“And it never floods ink down here,” Thomas remarked, setting his toolbox down on the floor and rummaging through it to find his wrench.

Wally’s nose wrinkled. “Are y’always like this to your buddies?”

“Every last one of them,” He replied with a smile, yanking his wrench out of the toolbox and getting to work on tightening up yet another ink pipe. These pipes were  _ everywhere _ \-- and  _ every single one of them _ had a very bad habit of leaking. Thomas was practically always busy with them, tightening them up whenever he could; whereas Wally stuck around him to tidy things up after his repairs (and sometimes be forced to help out, considering his mechanical experience from automobile assembly lines). It was a rather efficient system, and it seemed to keep most everybody happy and working hard, which was all Joey Drew cared about. 

“So!” Wally eventually said, rocking up on his toes a bit, “Didja hear ‘bout the new dame Joey’s been bringin’ in? Opera singer! Tall, redhead -- like mine, but, uh, softer -- a real catch, yep! Named Alison! People’re sayin’ that Joey’s gonna make ‘er th’ new Alice, an’ force Susie right out!” Thomas gave a grunt in reply, to indicate he was listening. Wally rocked back down. “So, jus’ between you an’ me...What’re the chances she’ll take all ‘er sadness an’ come to me with it?”

Thomas turned away from his work. “Slim to none.”

The janitor’s face fell, and he shifted his eyes away, biting at his thumb as he attempted to rerun those odds through his head. Thomas’s eyes rolled hard, a hissing breath escaping him. Wally was so... _ Silly. _ Thomas couldn’t begin to understand how a human being, one of flesh and blood, could practically be a caricature of himself. “Well, those ain’t the worst odds,” Wally said around his thumb, which made Thomas huff and resume focus on tightening up the pipe. Wally’s thumb came out of his mouth and he cheerily shrugged. “Guess we’ll jus’ hav’ta wait and see! Me, I always knew Joey would be a bad match for ‘er. He’s always goin’ ‘round about  _ authenticity _ , Susie would  _ never _ be real  _ authentic _ th’ way ‘e wants. But that’s why I’m around!” He pointed at himself with his thumb, smiling a beaming grin.

Thomas just exhaled and examined his handiwork. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

 

~

 

Joey had no idea how to give this studio a proper layout.

Thomas trudged down flights upon stairs, biting the skin off his lower lip in agitation.  _ Why _ did this place have so many  _ floors _ , and why did every floor have to have scattered bits and pieces of machinery that needed  _ him _ to fix them? This was  _ asinine.  _ Thomas turned another corner, then paused, taking a quick glance around. He turned around and looked at the stairwell. Had he gone down too far? Must have been too wrapped up in his thoughts to notice. Thomas grumbled to himself, counting on his fingers to figure out how many staircases he’d gone down --

Someone ran into his back.

Thomas’s first impulse was to rapidly wheel around and hold up his toolbox as though it were a bludgeoning weapon, but the sight and the voice of a stranger (“Whoa! Slow down, there!”) made him hesitate. He was tall and slightly rotund, with dark blond hair, dark blue eyes, thick round glasses, and a -- was he wearing a  _ top hat _ ? This man  _ couldn’t _ be for real. Still, his mustache  _ was _ respectable. Thomas relaxed slightly, eyes darting up and down the man, landing on the large pad of paper in his arms. “...And you are?”

“You haven’t heard of me?” He genuinely looked surprised by this, but he puffed his chest out. “Why, I’m Bertrum Ezra Piedmont, _the_ one and only! You _must_ have heard of me. Your Mister Joey Drew has hired me -- _wisely_ \-- to design him a theme park for his... _Interesting_ little band of characters. The pleasure is all mine!” The man beamed, sticking a hand out to shake.  
Bertrum’s sense of self-importance was enough to make Thomas need a drink. Still, he shook his hand. “Thomas Connor, middle name’s embarrassing, used to be a plumber but Drew forced me to work full-time here and I still haven’t quit,” He replied. “What exactly are you working on?”

“Thought you’d  _ never _ ask!” With a huge smile, Bertrum shifted the pad in his arms, showing off a series of sketches in succession to Thomas. “Of course, a Boris-themed railway,” He flipped the page, “A variety of game stalls -- need to use those stuffed animals  _ somehow _ ,” Flip, “Fully costumed magic shows! Still unsure who to use as costumed actors,” Flip, “I don’t know how to theme the haunted house -- should I adhere to the Bendy theming, use Bartholomew Batt, make up my own mythos --”

“Don’t bother using Bartholomew,” Thomas said, and Bertrum blinked indignantly at being interrupted. “He was scrapped -- back when I was a plumber, back when  _ Henry _ was still around. Drew wouldn’t want you using anything scrapped.”

Bertrum let out a hum at that, looking back at his pad of paper. “Shame, that. Could have  _ made _ something out of those old ideas,” He tutted to himself, but straightened up, putting the pad of paper under one arm. “Thank you for informing me. Would hate to step on toes. I’ll make something great  _ yet _ ,” There was a sort of sparkle in his eyes and a thoughtful smile on his face. Then, in just an instant, he seemed to snap back into reality. “You. What did you call yourself?”

“Thomas.”

“ _ Thomas. _ Do me a favor. Go up a few flights and ask the boys in the music department to make me a song. We need a -- a  _ theme _ , yes, a theme for the whole  _ park _ ; something that really captures that -- that little  _ spark _ of imagination. Think you can do that?”

 

~

 

_ Those lovely dreams / And belief fonder / Is just enough / To let the mind wander / Bring hope alive / Make everything anew / Those lovely dreams / Ignite in you! _

Sammy Lawrence and Jack Fain  _ rarely _ properly collaborated. Often, Sammy would drop off a piece of sheet music at Jack’s door and demand lyrics be fit into it. Jack would do so. It would be delivered back to Sammy, who more often than not would hate the first draft, and he’d retool the song into something he was more fond of. Then this would be taken to Jack, who more often than not would end up tweaking and changing the lyrics until he liked them better. This back-and-forth would continue until suddenly, abruptly, both parties had a song they were incredibly fond of. They’d thank each other, and the completed song would move out.

Of course, this time, the song wouldn’t be moving out to Joey Drew and the animation department. This time, it would be moving out to Bertrum Piedmont. That change in superior seemed to make the whole process just the slightest bit odder.

This song was on it’s fourth redoing.

Thomas had almost passed Jack’s office by as he did his standard ‘patrolling’ (wandering the studio looking for pipes to fix or other loose things before they became a problem), but upon hearing Jack mutter-singing this new set of lyrics, he paused in his doorway. “Still working on that one?” He asked.

The question was abrupt enough that it jarred Jack out of his concentration so hard it made him jump a bit. Jack was a mousey sort of man, small, with dark hair and big blue eyes and some freckles making him look younger then he was (though not as many freckles as Wally -- not that that was  _ hard _ ). His eyes locked on Thomas, and he calmed himself, adjusting his hat. “You know it,” He replied. “I think we’re  _ finally _ making it somewhere, though.”

“Really? So soon? Would’a thought there’d be at least six more go-arounds before then,” Thomas joked, smiling. Jack half-laughed in reply, shifting slightly, tapping his pencil against his desk. “Sam’s really puttin’ this project front and center, huh?”

Jack nodded. “Thinks it could be his break out of this place. As though I’m not a part of it at all.” He exhaled through his nose, which led into a bit of a smile. “Typical Sammy, right?”

“Typical Sammy,” Thomas agreed. “How can you even stand to work under him?  _ Insufferable  _ guy -- not worse then  _ Drew _ , special kind of evil to be worse then  _ Drew _ , but even still --”

“I can  _ hear _ you.”

Thomas turned his head, seeing Sammy standing by the doorway, one hand on his hip and the other holding his coffee cup. Thomas dismissively shrugged, then stepped out of the doorway and into Jack’s office. Sammy let out an exhale, walking into Jack’s office behind him, but in a moment he stood up straight and put on a bit of a smile. In just that gesture, he looked less like the awkward bird of a man he was and more like a dignified and ambitious...Bird of a man. “How are the lyrics coming, Jack?”

“Just about done!” He said, standing up from his desk and rushing over to Sammy with the composition. Sammy took it, passing the coffee cup over to Jack for him to hold on to. Sammy looked it over, humming out the tune, muttering to himself as he took out a pen from behind his ear and made some notations in the margins of the piece. Jack looked up at him hopefully, wringing his hands around Sammy’s cup. 

“You know what?” Sammy eventually said. “I think I like it.”

“Really?” Jack asked.

“Really. It’s got the right --  _ thing. _ Mister Piedmont will be  _ thrilled. _ ” With a smile, Sammy shifted the composition in his hand, scribbling names on the top: “By Samuel Horace Lawrence and Jackson William --”

“Jack Willie,” Jack corrected.

“Y’have to sign things usin’  _ middle names _ ?” Thomas asked, incredulous.

Sammy let out a small huff at the repairman’s intrusion, but still he nodded and finished his writing. “Joey’s orders. Middle names on  _ everything. _ Won’t explain  _ why _ , of course, it’s  _ ridiculous _ , but if he says…” Sammy tucked the composition under his arm and put the pen back behind his ear, taking back his cup from Jack’s hands. “Now, we need another rewrite for the haunted house’s musical number,” The joy drained from Jack’s face, “Needs to be --  _ snappier. _ Make it more brisk. We won’t have a barbershop quartet in for very  _ long _ , we  _ need _ it to be  _ perfect. _ And I need to produce a theremin for  _ Joey’s  _ latest scheme,” The music director turned a pointed glare towards Thomas. “And  _ you _ should stop slacking off on your work before I go and report you to Joey.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t lose your temper, you big parrot. Don’t want me breakin’ that pump switch in your office, do you?” Thomas smiled, and Sammy adopted a look of bitter anger that looked like it was made for Sammy’s face. Thomas gave a half-mocking salute towards them in goodbye, then sauntered out of the door, still grinning.

“If you break that, I’ll make  _ sure _ you’re fired,” He heard Sammy sneer at him as he left.

 

~

 

Weird things were happening in Joey’s studio.

Well, maybe that was an understatement. Weird things were  _ always _ happening in Joey’s studio. Eventually, everyone got used to the  _ regular _ amount of weird things going on every day and it took a  _ very big _ weird thing to become notable. 

Sammy had begun acting strangely, so claimed the band members and the projectionist, Norman Polk. Thomas couldn’t say  _ he _ saw much of a difference -- but then again, he didn’t see much of Sammy. He also couldn’t say he knew much about the growing tensions between Susie and Alison either, but Wally was more than happy to ramble endlessly about it (as well as his failed romantic endeavors, and literally anything else under the sun). Thomas may be  _ used _ to the weird things, but that didn’t mean he  _ liked _ them any bit, so he tried to stay away from such talk.

Lucky for him, he always had Bertrum.

_ Un _ luckily for him, Bertrum wasn’t exactly the best and least weird company ever.

“Joey doesn’t know what he’s  _ doing, _ ” Bertrum said spitefully as he strolled into one of the rooms in the planned out ‘Bendy Land’ space, where Thomas was fixing one of his machines.

“What gave you  _ that _ idea?” Thomas replied with more than a hefty dose of sarcasm in his tone.

Bertrum shook his head with a sort of indignant snort, but didn’t tell off Thomas for his tone. “He has all these iconic properties. Iconic characters. A practically supernatural way of making his cartoons successful. And what does he choose to do with them?” His fingers were curled into tight fists. “ _ Nothing _ of any sort of value! All he does is come down and nag at me about keeping ‘true to the characters’ and ‘not being too inauthentic’ and all of that trite  _ hogwash. _ As though  _ I _ , the great Bertrum Ezra Piedmont, would ever do something to bring his properties  _ shame.  _ He should be  _ thanking _ me. Instead, every day, I fear he’s closer to  _ firing _ me.”

“Is he even capable of firing someone? Here I thought Joey’s  _ one _ talent was bringin’ more people  _ into _ this mess,” Thomas smiled, letting out a sort of snort-laugh noise. 

Bertrum frowned hard, glaring daggers at Thomas; but he turned away and took a moment to adjust himself. He straightened his top hat out. “Yes, well. A mess it may be, but I shall be the one pioneering it to new greatness! And don’t let him forget it,” He’d begun smiling a wide, prideful, toothy grin; and he looked over at Thomas as he fixed up his carnival octopus ride. “Ah, yes! This will be a jewel in the crown that is this beloved park. How is it coming along, Taylor?”

“Thomas.”

“Yes, yes. Thomas.”

Thomas stepped back a bit, taking a second to wipe some sweat off his brow. The hand holding his wrench went on his hip. He stared up at the octopus ride, a lopsided smile of his own coming onto his face. “Don’t look half bad, I’d say,” He glanced over at Bertrum to see any approval from him, but he just had his prideful smile on, making his true feelings harder to read. “Should I flip the switch?”

“By all means!”

He nodded, then went around to the back of the octopus ride. He stepped behind the control panel, then flipped the main switch. The machine shook a bit, then came to life, the lights playfully flashing and the arms spinning around. Bertrum let out a triumphant laugh. “What a mechanical marvel! All it needs is some characters painted on those doors at the top,” He said as Thomas turned the ride back off. “I’ve made something spectacular, Tobias!”

Thomas cleared his throat, coming back around the octopus with his hands on his hips.

“...Forgive me,  _ we’ve _ made something spectacular,” Bertrum corrected himself. The man came around to Thomas’s side, throwing an arm around his shoulders and grinning at the octopus ride. “This is it! The  _ crème de la crème _ ! Ah, Joey will be so proud of this he may consider giving  _ full ownership _ of the studio to me! I’d reject it, of course, as I am a man famed for not only my astounding marvels of mechanization but also my modesty, but it’s the thought that counts.” 

Thomas let out a bit of a snort, his eyes rolling, but he still looked up at the octopus ride with a sense of pride. He wiped at his forehead again. “Sure is somethin’,” He remarked, and then he added, dryly, “Make sure it doesn’t break down every other day. I’m not coming down here more than I  _ need _ to. Are we clear?”

“And if you must?”

“If I’m forced to walk down all those stairs to fix this thing three times a week or more, I might just break this whole machine myself.”

 

~

 

“Your hard work isn’t going unappreciated, you know.”

Thomas turned with a start, shifting the mop as though about to use it as a weapon. He relaxed only upon seeing who’d come up to talk to him: Joey Drew. A sharp exhale left him. “Thanks. I always did love having more things to do,” He replied, venom in his tone. 

If Joey picked up on the tone, he didn’t show it. “I always did like you, Thomas,” He said, which made Thomas roll his eyes and resume mopping. “Always a hard worker, always so...Diligent. There’s a reason I needed you to be here, after all. Only those with dedication, with  _ authenticity _ , in their hearts can truly persist here.” Joey was talking in that  _ tone _ of his, that  _ tone _ he always adopted when gushing about dreams and belief and all that nonsense. It made Thomas want to throw up. “I’m so sorry you had to take up Wally’s job.”

He wasn’t sorry at all. Nobody smiled while saying  _ sorry. _

Nobody but Joey Drew, that is.

“Yeah, yeah,” Thomas said flippantly, focusing his gaze on the floor to try and indicate to Joey he didn’t want to talk to him right then.

Joey didn’t get the hint. “I  _ really _ do hate to keep shifting everyone’s workload around, but, you know how it is -- the show must go on. We cannot allow our little devil darling and all his success fade away just because we lost a few people.”

“Yeah…” Thomas looked at Joey with a slightly craned eyebrow. “Where  _ did _ they head off to, anyhow?”

Joey paused, his smile lessening, but not going away. He simply shook his head. “I never wanted to lose them -- you  _ know _ that,” He leaned against his cane, using his free hand to straighten out his collar a bit. “It’s a... _ Shame _ they just keep...Disappearing like that. Samuel, Wallace,  _ Norman _ …” His voice adopted a bit of an interesting tone on the last name, but Thomas wasn’t able to remark upon it before Joey let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know why these things keep happening to me, Thomas. I really don’t.”

The problem with Joey was it was hard to tell how genuine he was being at any given time. Thomas could buy that he truly believed in all his talk about  _ dreams _ and  _ belief _ and  _ pleasing the divines  _ and the like, but when it came to things like this, the very  _ death _ or at the very least  _ inexplicable disappearance  _ of many of his own employees...He was impossible to read. “Don’t ask me,” He said, dunking the mop into the dirty bucket beside him, listening as Joey let out some tutting noises. “Just don’t force any more work onto  _ me _ , got it? I have enough to repair and clean already, not to mention the stains on my skin…”

“Stains on your skin?” Joey parroted back.

Thomas exhaled, then paused in his working to roll up one sleeve and show Joey some inky blotches. “What is this ink  _ made _ out of? It’s hell to clean out of  _ anything _ , and now I can’t get it off my  _ arm. _ Thanks for that.”

Joey tilted his head slightly, taking his free hand and running a finger down Thomas’s arm. Thomas violently jerked his arm away, but it didn’t seem to matter to Joey. “Have you been swallowing any, perchance?” He asked, pushing his eyeglasses up his nose.

Thomas’s face twisted into almost exaggerated confusion, and he made a few gestures with his hands to try to indicate what an utterly  _ baffling _ question that was without outright saying so. “ _ What _ ?” He replied, then closed his eyes and shook his head with a huffing sound. “No, why would I -- I’m not the sort of man that goes around  _ drinking ink _ by the cupful, Joey. Why would you even ask…”

“No reason,” He said, and his smile grew a bit, though there appeared to be some slight worry in his eyes. Thomas couldn’t fathom why, but, then again, Joey was impossible to read. “Keep up the excellent work, Thomas. I cannot thank you enough for staying with this as you have. I’m sure Bendy would thank you, too!”

“I’m sure,” Thomas mumbled, resuming his work. “Yeah, well, don’t mention it. And make sure I’m not the one getting saddled with anybody else’s workload when the next person  _ leaves. _ Alright?”

Joey nodded, the smile on his face softening. “I’ll make sure of it. But I’ll also make sure we don’t lose anyone else important -- well, not without a justified reason, of course. I’m a good man, Thomas. I don’t want you to think anything less of me.”

It would be  _ very hard _ to think anything less then he already did of Joey Drew. 

But Thomas just gave a half-hearted nod, more to indicate he heard what Joey said then that he agreed with it. Joey beamed, then turned around and left Thomas to his work.

He missed Wally being around. At least he could vent to him about Joey’s...Oddities.

 

~

 

Thomas descended down the stairs, his toolbox in one hand. He pulled up his rubber gloves slightly. He grumbled to himself. The halls of the studio were getting harder and harder to tell apart by the day -- probably had to do with all the ink seeping into the wood -- and yet still he was the one who had to navigate everywhere and fix all these messes and tighten up the pipes. He hated it here. One day, he told himself, he’d leave for good.

He seemed to be telling himself that a lot recently.

Thomas let out an exhale before wading into the sea of ink. Disgusting. Every single part of this place was  _ disgusting. _ He looked up, trying to find the particular pipes that were causing such damage -- but that seemed to be impossible, with the minimal lighting in the place.  _ Ugh. _ He had to find these pipes so he could stop the flooding, then it could be drained, the same way as always. Everything had it’s patterns. Like the pattern of  _ unreasonable _ amounts of laundry he always had to do -- the ink stained  _ everything _ , and it was impossible to get out. Not to mention the stains that were on his skin…

Wait.

Thomas stopped dead in his tracks, head whipping to the side. There was light coming from that side. The light flickered and pulsated, different from how a candle might, but it was still... _ Something. _ He leaned forward slightly, trying to get a better look at it for a moment; but he thought the better of that and just resumed looking for those leaking pipes. Needed to repair the pipes. Stop the flooding. Drain the ink. Clean the mess. Everything in it’s familiar patterns.

The lighting changed. Shadows shifted against the walls. Thomas moved forward, the pipes he needed still evading his sight. The lighting changed again, and the shadows shifted, and Thomas moved forward still. Why couldn’t that light source stay still? 

A light source couldn’t move unless someone was moving it.

All too suddenly, Thomas heard the sounds of sloshing ink, and something faint that sounded like  _ reeee… _

His heart pounding, Thomas tried first to back up. The ink weighed down his steps, though, and made it difficult for him to run -- not to mention the  _ noise _ of it, which whatever with the light source seemed to notice, seemed to be coming towards. So Thomas took in a sharp breath, and he dropped down, submerging his entire body in the knee-high pool of ink. Everything felt heavy under the ink, heavy, choking, smothering. But he just held his breath, best he could. He waited what felt like an eternity. He couldn’t tell, under the smothering blackness of the ink, if that  _ thing _ was coming or not.

He did hear the whisper of a voice.

_ Look up, you big silly. _

The voice was chipper, almost cartoonish and teasing in nature. He wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Still, Thomas slowly tilted his head upwards until the top of his head and his eyes poked out of the ink. He blinked until the darkness stopped streaming over his eyes, until he could see with some form of clarity.

The light was bright, harsh compared to the darkness of the ink. A creature was guiding the light, stalking through the halls, seeming confused that the source of the noises had just  _ left.  _ It was made of ink, mostly. Thomas could spot some mechanical bits in there. Most notable was his head: an old projector, spilling an empty white light out of it. Thomas almost choked on the breath he was holding upon seeing the  _ thing _ , but he pushed one hand through the ink to cover his mouth. The creature swept it’s light across the area one more time, then deemed the place empty, and it staggered away, down the hall and around a corner, leaving everything dimmer than it was.

Thomas waited until it was gone. He let out his breath through his nose, but no air bubbles pushed through the ink. He stood up, pulling at his submerged toolbox until it came out with a sucking noise. He pulled off one of his rubber gloves. The hand under it was still a bit dirtied from the submerged state he was in, but not too badly. He wiped his hand across his face, clearing ink from around his eyes and under his nostrils and over his lips, shaking the excess into the pool.

…

He wiped away some more ink from around his eyes. There was a  _ lot _ there. More than he’d  _ ever _ reasonably be able to see through. And yet…

…

Thomas muttered something to himself. He shook his head. Slowly, he turned around, and while still scraping ink off of his body, he began to trudge away from this place.

Maybe those pipes didn’t need fixing. Maybe there were larger matters to take care of.

 

~

 

Thomas couldn’t remember when he stopped leaving the studio.

That, in and of itself, was a little ridiculous. People usually  _ remembered _ things like that. He wasn’t  _ told _ to stay here. He just...Stopped going home one day. Maybe it was around the time the inky spots on his skin became more then that, went from spots to patches to all-consuming  _ entities.  _ He still patrolled around, though. He still went up and down the hallways in his familiar patterns, looking for pipes to fix up or stains to clean away. His tools were easier to clean then he was, and Thomas appreciated that, at least. He could at least keep working. It was easier to forget what was going on around him if he kept himself busy. Look for leaking pipes. Repair Bertrum’s machine. Try and clean some new writing off the walls. Repair Bertrum’s machine. Sweep up debris. Repair Bertrum. Make sure no fallen boards were in inconvenient locations. Repair Bertrum.

Thomas also couldn’t remember when ‘repair Bertrum’s machine’ had turned into ‘repair Bertrum’.

Thomas’s grip on his tools was a bit shaky -- ink didn’t particularly provide the best traction -- but he still tightened up the bolts on Bertrum’s octopus ride. He paused every now and then to try and wipe ink away from his eyes, but it never seemed to really help anything. “Almost done,” He said, voice tired.

“ _ Fantastic _ ,” Replied Bertrum, from -- somewhere. His voice sort of sounded like it was coming from inside the octopus ride. “And when you’re done, Theodore, get me some more ink. It’s almost done. Oh, he’ll  _ love  _ it.”

In some act of defiance, Thomas reached over and wrote his first name on one of the octopus’s legs using the ink of his hand. “What do you need it for?”

“Why, only for my  _ finest _ creation, of course. One  _ guaranteed  _ to get the praise from mister Joey Drew -- one that will make him  _ regret _ ever treating me  _ the way he did _ ,” The machine gave a violent shudder, and Thomas quickly backed up, in case Bertrum was about to begin using the arms of the octopus ride as bludgeoning weapons. Instead, the doors in the ride’s middle, the doors Thomas thought were purely aesthetic, opened. Inside, there was…

Oh,  _ god. _

Inside there was what looked like Joey Drew’s head in effigy. It also sort of looked like a dead fish head, Thomas thought. It’s bulging eyes stared at Thomas, the mouth uselessly opening and closing like it was being controlled by a terrible puppeteer. “Like it?” Asked Bertrum, “It’s not perfect  _ yet _ , of course. I can’t get his spectacles to look right. I need more ink so I can try again, so I can get it  _ perfect _ \-- and oh, when it’s perfect, when  _ every last detail _ is in it’s rightful place, when it’s  _ so close _ to the real thing that a man isn’t able to tell the two apart at a passing glance…” Bertrum laughed, and then there was a pause. “I’ll kill him.”

“... _ What _ ?” Thomas breathed.

“I’ll kill him,” Bertrum repeated, all too casual with it. “Oh, honestly, don’t act so confused by it. We’ve all wanted to. We all hated him for different reasons. None of us want to see him still alive and breathing. So I’ll be the one  _ brave enough _ to accomplish it! If he loves himself, his own face, so  _ dearly _ …” The doors closed, “Then he’ll have no qualms with watching it  _ pound his face _ into the wooden foundations of this  _ living Hell. _ ” The machine shuddered again, and the arms of the octopus ride spun around, as though to clear up any possible confusion as to what the weapon of choice would be. “...Yes, oh, yes. He’ll regret what he did to me.” And then, hastily, like he just remembered Thomas was even in the room at all, “To  _ us. _ ”

Thomas was silent. He backed up a pace. He tried to wipe more ink off of his face. The only thing he could find to say was, “Well, I’ll get you some more ink, then,” to which Bertrum gave an approving hum. He turned around and left the room, then kept walking until he was a good deal away from Bertrum or anybody else. He exhaled. He leaned his back against the wall. He reached up to try and wipe some more ink off...But he paused.

He looked at himself.

Parts of himself were dripping ink, soaked in an endless supply of the stuff, seemingly impossible to wipe away despite his better efforts. But parts of him...In parts of him, he could see bits of other things. Skin. Fabric. He wasn’t entirely ink. But he wasn’t entirely the old Thomas, either. He was something in the middle.

He lowered his hand, then moved it towards one of the dripping sections of his own being. He scraped the ink down, trying to cover every single bit of remaining skin and fabric with the all-swallowing blackness of the ink.

He wasn’t wholly Thomas. The ink wouldn’t wash away, and despite all his efforts, it wouldn’t just be scraped away either. But he  _ could _ be wholly ink. 

He just wanted to be wholly  _ something. _

 

~

 

There were more like him. He wasn’t sure if it was comforting or terrifying that he wasn’t alone down here. He and others -- others he couldn’t really put a name to when all their faces were inky masses with glowing eyes, when all their voices seemed to come from everywhere at once -- all congregated down below, in a room together. They made small talk with each other. They asked questions nobody could really answer (‘when are we going home?’ was a popular one). Sometimes they tried to play games together, but their attempts at mirth never seemed to make it very far. Sometimes they tried to get a grasp on someone else’s name. That was easy to do with some people and harder with others, depending. It was easy to get lost in a crowd when everybody looked just about the same.

Thomas knew who he was. He was Thomas Connor, and his middle name was embarrassing (with a capital ‘e’? No, that couldn’t be right). He still had his galoshes. They were dirty, and he didn’t particularly wear them anymore, but he still kept them around as some sort of reminder of who he was. He figured it’d be easier to keep track of himself, to make sure he was Thomas Connor and nobody else was Thomas Connor, if he had that kind of token. 

One day, there was an unusual sound in their usual dwelling places. A loud yelp.

Thomas wasn’t the first to follow that strange noise, but he did move with a small crowd of others like him as they went to see what the noise was for. They came to see a cartoon dog -- a Boris. They’d all seen Borises before, but none had ever been so...Animated. So...On-model. He was holding a metal pipe and shaking, and when he noticed the others approaching him, he gave another yelp and backed away from them. “I-I’m real sorry, I am!” He said, nervousness baked into every bit of his tone. “I-I was jus’ -- well -- an’ then  _ it _ , it c-came up at me, an I got spooked, an’ I…” His pie-cut eyes went down to the floor, staring at an inky puddle and the hat resting on top of it. “I’m sorry!”

An empty silence followed. Everyone’s glowing eyes turned to stare at the puddle. The hat on top of it was also a sort of token, an indication of who the person used to be: Jack Fain. This bizarre, perfect yet clumsy and skittish dog had killed Jack Fain. Possibly most bizarrely of all, it was clear nobody really knew how to  _ feel _ about what just happened. There was only silence. Silence and a nervous Boris who seemed to only be shaking more by their lack of accepting his apology. 

Then the ink puddle rippled.

If their attention wasn’t fixated on it before, it  _ certainly _ was now; every inky creature and the Boris alike all staring at the puddle as it began to  _ move. _ The ink shifted, and curled, and twisted in on itself until it began to take shape: first a hand, and then it pulled itself into an arm, the beginnings of a torso, another hand and arm...The process ended itself when a hand clutched at the side of this head. The eyes -- or, more accurately, the dark indentations where they should have been -- blinked a few times. The reformed creature put his hat back on.

“Jack?” Somebody asked softly.

He nodded.

“ _ Phew _ !” Boris signed loudly, wiping sweat off his brow (and inky drops of ‘sweat’ flicked off from the motion, just to keep up the illusion). “I-I really thought you were a goner, I didn’t really wanna think I could ever -- well -- send a man to th’ cuttin’-room floor, if you get what I mean…”

“How did you do it?” Somebody else asked, slowly coming up beside Jack as he tried to reform the rest of himself. 

“...I’m not...Sure,” Jack said, his voice a bit thick with some feeling nobody could place. “I just...Tried to find myself in the ink, every part of myself, because I didn’t want to disappear, and...And I...I guess I just…” He held out one hand, observing it in wonderment. “Pulled myself back together.”

This relevelation was met with silence. It was Thomas who first said the obvious: “That means we can’t... _ Die. _ ”

That made everyone mutter a bit. Some repeated the statement, others merely laughed at the thought, and he heard someone let out a sob at the thought of how far from  _ human _ they must be. Thomas put a hand to his chest, fingers curling around the spot his heart may have once been at, but there was no beating. They couldn’t die. They couldn’t  _ die.  _ There was no  _ death _ for them, nothing beyond... _ This. _ There was only the studio. Only emptiness. Only ink.

Only ink.

A quieter voice piped in. “Where did his lights go?”

Everyone looked back at Jack with a start. His eyes weren’t glowing anymore. Jack himself seemed panicked by this, his fingers skimming over the surface of the ink puddle to see if he could somehow find and grasp the light that illuminated everyone else’s eyes. He couldn’t, of course, and in fear and despair he pulled his arms close to his chest.

“Well, wait then!” Boris came up closer to Jack, grinning ear to ear. “That’s how I’ll make it up to ‘ya, pal! I could find your lights!”  
Jack looked up at Boris. “You could?”

“You betcha’! Me an’ my best pal know every inch of this here studio -- I could find your lights and put them right back in your head, and it’d be like no damage was done, nohow! Would that be enough?”

Jack nodded. “Thank you. Thank you! You’re sure you can find them?”

The cartoon wolf smiled wide, puffing out his chest and putting his hands on his hips proudly. “Sure I’m sure! They’ll be right back where they should be before y’know it, swear it on my heart! Whenever I lose somethin’, it’s always in a real obvious place anyhow -- what’re the chances they’re in some real obvious place, an’ I’ll find ‘em within a day?”

“Slim to none,” Thomas remarked, blatantly doubtful in the cartoon’s actual ability to help.

Boris deflated a bit. Jack shot Thomas a sort of look, to which Thomas merely shifted, glancing away in faux innocence. Boris rubbed at his chin, tapping his foot in thought; then moved his hand so he could bite at his thumb. “Well, those ain’t the worst odds!” He eventually said, optimism winning over everything else. “I’ll get looking for you, then, buddy! Be back when I find those lights!” He turned on his heel, waving goodbye to Jack with his free hand, then awkwardly pushing his way through the crowd of inky people before shouting a final goodbye to all of them and leaving them behind. 

“We’ll never see him again,” Thomas intoned.

Someone else let out a bit of a growl. “Don’t say that. Maybe something good can still happen.”

“Over my dead body,” Thomas bitterly mumbled. Nobody seemed to hear him as they all began to leave, so he added, even quieter: “And I can’t die.”

 

~

 

Thomas trudged up the stairs. 

Going up and down the stairs was a tedious experience. But the prophet’s sanctum was in the music department, and he would never come down --  _ you _ would have to come  _ up. _ That was the way of things. He held something near to his chest as he ascended up flight of stairs after flight of stairs, sometimes losing himself momentarily when the flooding of ink became too bad, but always managing to reform. He went up the final stairwell, and he could hear something. A song.

“ _ When the tombstones make their music bright and the smile’s seen throughout the night… _ ”

Thomas froze up. Interrupting the prophet while he was singing was  _ always _ a bad thing to do, everybody knew that. He approached the music department cautiously, being as silent as he could muster. 

“ _ The conductor on the crypt does stand and plays a tune throughout the land… _ ” 

Thomas stopped. He could just barely see the prophet himself, sitting with his back facing the large drum, staring at sheets of paper as he sang. “ _ The dancing demon’s magic ghostly band! _ ” He sang, a smile almost visible from behind his mask. But then the smile fell. He leaned over the papers. “ _ No, _ no, it’s still wrong, still needs correcting --” He moved a hand down his torso and seemed to pull out a fountain pen from his own chest, hurriedly beginning to make notations on the paper. “Needs to be...More brisk. It is not yet ready for sacrifice, for a gift for it’s grace. No, no…” As the prophet’s voice quieted, Thomas came closer to him; and the man in the mask slowly looked up as his shadow came over him. “Ah,” He said, rising up until he stood, hands clasping. “Have you come to give confession?”

“...I have,” He said.

“Good, good. What will you give for tithe?”

Thomas looked down. Then he pulled his arms away from his chest, bringing what he was holding with them: a pair of old galoshes. He held them out for the prophet, Sammy Lawrence, to take. 

Sammy took them from Thomas’s grasp, looking them over, then nodding with a hum. “These will do,” He said, setting them beside the papers on the floor. “What, then, do you wish to confess?”

Thomas hesitated. He pulled his arms back towards his chest, beginning to rub them. “...It’s cold,” He began, his voice quiet, missing any of the sour tones it may have once had. “It’s always cold, and it’s dark, and it’s...Numb. It’s so  _ numb _ . I want it to stop being so --  _ numb. _ I want to go home, go be outside, not just hear the rain but  _ feel _ it, I want to --” His fingers sunk into his arm, merging with the ink it was made of. “I want to  _ feel _ , Sam. I’m sick’a not feeling anything like this. When does it  _ stop _ ?”

As he spoke, Sammy had looked away. His mouth was in a frown. “I understand your frustration,” He finally replied, “Yes, it can be...Harrowing, tested by the savior as we are. These are the times that make even faith like mine wave…” He couldn’t seem to bring himself to complete the word. “...Still. I know it will save us all. It has promised me salvation, should I remain faithful -- and as it’s vessel, it’s chosen, it’s voice, it’s body, I bequeath such privilege upon any acolyte who follows as I do. Keep making your sacrifices, dear sheep. It’ll appreciate your gifts, and, in time, you shall be rewarded.”

This wasn’t the kind of answer Thomas wanted. His eyes narrowed slightly. “I  _ gave you _ those boots, Sam. I don’t have anything else to  _ give up. _ ”

“Your eyes still glow.”

He paused. He pulled one hand free from his arm, then observed it, noting the faint shine on the ink from his glowing yellow eyes. “So?”

An exhale. Hesitantly, Sammy reached up, one hand clasping the side of his mask. He pulled it off slowly. Sammy’s face was an inky, black slate: only dents and ridges indicated where eyes and a nose should be. “As long as your eyes are awash in such light, you have something to give: your mortal soul. Pray, then, that it takes an interest in you; that you too shall be able to sign the paperwork it offers so it may accept such a sacrifice to prove your love and devotion.”

A beat. “...Now wait,” Thomas’s voice took on a bit of an edge as Sammy put his mask back on. “Jack didn’t sign  _ anything.  _ But his lights are out. What sense does that…”

“When one loses themselves amongst the ink, one must realize that anything lost in there becomes property of the lord. After all,” Sammy spread his arms, “It is inside the ink, all around us. That is the blood of the demon. Intentional or not, the savior saw his soul as a worthy sacrifice to it -- and thus it was taken.” His arms lowered. His face became a bit flatter. “Perhaps it is that that will tip the scales in his favor, and lead him to salvation before you. I cannot say for certain. Still, stay devout, dear sheep. All paths of devotion will reach their end...Can I get an ‘amen’?”

“Amen,” Thomas said. Sammy nodded in satisfaction, and Thomas nodded back. He turned away from Sammy, and without so much as a goodbye (not that the prophet seemed to mind), he left the music department to start going down the flights of stairs again.

He paused, looking to the side, catching sight of some writing on the wall.  _ IT’S TIME TO BELIEVE. _

What, exactly, was he supposed to be believing in? Sammy? Joey? The demon?

Thomas wasn’t exactly sure he believed in any of those. At least, not enough to write on a wall about.

 

~

 

One day, a man came in.

He was dirtied up with ink and looked tired and confused. He was stocky-looking, with blond hair and reading glasses perched on his head. He looked familiar to Thomas, even if he didn’t quite know why. He stared at them for a long moment, then blinked and rubbed one hand over his eyes. He looked at them again. “...So this isn’t a hallucination,” He quietly muttered, slowly walking up to the crowd of them. “Do you speak?”

Nobody dared reply.

“...The one out there did,” He said. He tried to smile at them, but he couldn’t keep up the illusion for too long, eventually running a hand down his face. Any attempt at happiness drained from it. “...Are you all -- did I work with -- did  _ he _ …” He couldn’t finish any of those thoughts, and they all merged together as he let out a long exhale. “...Listen, I’ll...I’ll see if I can find some way to get you all out of here as well.” To punctuate that, he took a small notebook out of his pocket and pulled out a pencil, writing down a note for himself. He pocketed them. “I  _ promise. _ I won’t just...I  _ can’t _ just…” He couldn’t finish those thoughts either, running a hand down his face. “Excuse me while I go through. I’m...I’m so sorry, all of you. I’m so sorry.” He moved on forward, walking around others as they watched him. Some were curious. Some were hopeful. Some were sad, or tired, or so deep in their despair they didn’t feel anything looking at him.

Thomas followed him.

He was silent as he did so, but he followed the man as he went through the crowds and picked up a flashlight, entering the vent system. Thomas stood in front of the vent as the man began to crawl through, as though functioning on some force of determination, even if nobody in the room could say what he was determined to do. Someone else he couldn’t name came up alongside Thomas. “I like him,” Whoever it was said quietly. “I forgive him.”

“What’re you forgiving him for?”

“I don’t know. But he said sorry, didn’t he? And I don’t think he’s so bad. So I forgive him.”

Thomas just watched the vent in silence, giving a small hum to show he’d heard.

Really silly to think one tired man could save an entire studio fallen into disarray.

But then again, Thomas couldn’t think of a place where more silly things happened then this one.

**Author's Note:**

> Well this was a long time coming!
> 
> Chapter four was...Interesting for me. It was certainly interesting and didn't actively contradict anything I already set up, but it also left me in a weird state of deciding how to string everything together, which generally-accepted-as-fact headcanons to completely disregard, and which small-pieces-of-canon-information-I-frankly-missed to continue disregarding. So we have this now! I think it's pretty solid.
> 
> In other news I'm considering a drabble series? Where I can write little vignette of things that would be weird to otherwise incorporate in a full fic? Preemptive suggestions for things I could write in that are welcome, but don't let that news distract you from the fic at hand. Don't even know if I'll do it yet.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy!


End file.
